The retail and food service industries are large-volume purveyors of beverages and other flowable food products such as syrups and condiments in a variety of container configurations that are sold to or provided for use by consumers. Many of these products can advantageously be sold as stand-up packages for beverages, including water (both natural and flavored), ice teas, energy drinks, non-carbonated fruit-flavored drinks and concentrated drink mixes, as well as flowable dry products such as rice and sugar, to name just a few. In some cases, stand-up packages of the prior art have a separate bottom gusset that expands when filled to form an essentially flat supporting base to allow the package to stand up on the extended gusseted bottom.
Stand-up flexible packaging, or pouches, for liquids provide the benefits of rigid packages such as glass and plastic bottles and plasticized paperboard cartons, including the ability of the user to set the pouch down between servings, as in beverage use, and the benefit of providing a classic billboard type principal display panel for merchandising at the retail level. Conventional stand up pouches are generally made by introducing a gusset in the bottom in order to provide a flat bottom surface able to provide the base for the standup feature (see FIG. 1).
Flexible packaging products that include an integral internal dispensing tube, or straw, bar use with, e.g., beverages, and are formed with a gusset to provide the stand-up capability are described in published US 2015/0090740, the entire disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.
These types of prior art packages have several drawbacks including the complexity of multiple methods of fabricating the gusset, the additional material required and the relatively higher cost associated with their production. Gussets can be formed by one of two methods: (a) folding the material in a manner so as to form the gusset integrally from the piece of packaging material; and (b) adding a separate piece of folded material between the two front and back sheets to produce the same result. Using the added piece allows the construction with either a thicker, more rigid piece bar the gusset adding a benefit of either a more robust and better package, or a more economical package because adding the thicker gusset permits use of thinner and, therefore less expensive front and back panels.
Some flexible containers of the prior art can advantageously be formed and filled with any desired dispensable liquid or flowable substance utilizing horizontal thermoform-fill-seal (“HTFFS”) machines which are well known in the packaging industry. The construction, use and process of operation of HTFFS equipment is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,322,465, the entire disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference. The container portion of the package is thermoformed and a top sheet is heat-sealed around the periphery to provide a fluid-tight flexible dispensing package. Various packaging machine manufacturers and distributors in the U.S. and outside of the U.S. have posted animations at their respective websites that illustrate a variety of prior art methods and systems for producing thermoformed packages, blister packs, and the like. A typical informational web posting for such packaging machines is found at ulmapackaging.com.
As noted, manufacturers have been distributing a variety of beverages in packages formed from polymeric flexible sheets and webs in a package formed with a gusset in the base. When combined with the relatively heavy gauge polymer films used to form the front and rear walls, the additional material required to form the gusset with the opposing front and rear panels of the package provides sufficient structural integrity to permit the finished package, even when empty, to maintain a stand-up orientation. The use of this heavier gauge material results in an added amount of waste packaging material that must be subjected to proper disposal.
In the present era of both governmental and consumer concern with the adverse impact of waste packaging materials on the environment and the costs associated with their recovery and proper disposal, the problem exists of providing a truly lightweight, but robust and durable form of packaging to replace glass, plastic and paperboard containers. The economical mass production of flexible lightweight packages from one or more polymer films is possible on the conventional horizontal thermoforming, fill and seal machines that are well known in the art. However, gusseted packages cannot be produced on the conventional HTFFS machines without significant modifications to accomplish additional folding steps and possibly an additional web.
A need exists for less expensive packaging for liquids such as milk and fruit juices that are mass-distributed in single-serve portions on a daily basis, e.g., to school children, that will also reduce the burden on the environment associated with their disposal.
Another need that has not been met by the prior art is for dispensing packages for liquids and other flowable materials that are inexpensively produced from flexible, thermoformable polymer films and webs in a stable stand-up configuration for consumer use and that are suitable for retail display on shelves and at the point of sale.